Thankful: Days 1-5

Day 1: My teaching position.

It is a challenge.  It is a blessing.  It is overwhelming.  Everyday I have the opportunity to impact the lives of my students, to change our city, our state and our world with the words and thoughts I choose to express and teach.  I am so incredibly grateful for this gift.

Day 2: Soccer and community.

I wanted to push myself to get to know other teachers besides my mentors.  And I needed to commit to some any form of exercise.  So when I got the e-mail to join the women's soccer team The Bullshooters, I replied with "yes!" before I could second guess myself.  It has been a great way to exercise, socialize and work through my stress.  (And a bonus for the Mr. smooth legs every Monday)

Day 3: My health.

I don't always make the best choices when it comes to what I eat, drink or how often I exercise.  I don't always take care of myself and listen to my body.  But I am so thankful my body is healthy.  Today one of my students lost their mother from an illness they only found out about three weeks earlier.  I cannot even imagine that kind of weight at such a vulnerable age.  Health is often something I take for granted.

Day 4: The garden.

Thankful to finally have a space to garden.  I love time spent in solace with dirt under my nails.  Today I put the garden to bed.  Harvested the lavender and the herbs.  Pruned the bushes.  Dug up the bulbs.  I can't wait for the spring to start the garden again.  But I'm also happy to spend the time I would have gardening, curled up with a good book.

Day 5: Good friends.

{Matt and Shira at their beautiful wedding 10.15.11, Marshall and I were both in the bridal party}

Grateful for new friends that are quickly become great friends.  Our friends Matt and Shira have been such a blessing to us.  Tonight Matt and Marshall watched football while Shira and I got our nails done and made book paper dahlias.  It is so nice to have friends who are also a married couple, that we like individually and together.

Thankful

I'm joining the bandwagon of thankfulness (inspired by her, her and her).  I'd been planning to do a daily post in November about thankfulness, but several days had already passed and I thought I'd missed my bloggy chance once again.

But I miss blogging...a lot.  I miss writing something other than lesson plans or parent e-mails.  I need adult interaction, even if it's only on these internets.  And I need to express some gratitude.  Public education is in a very strange/challenging/awkward phase in Idaho right now, kind of like the majority of my students are in life.  As a result, most of the words and thoughts I'm surrounded by for 40+ hours of my week are less than thankful or positive.

So I'm going to be thankful and gracious...even if it's already day 20.  So bare with me as the posts come rolling in.  I want to be able to look back year after year and remember all that makes me thankful.

When the cat's away...at drill

Hello.  I am still alive and in fact quite alive.  Things have been a little crazy around the Cook household.  We've had a going away party for the Mr.'s best friend, I graduated, we went and played in Las Vegas, we put in a yard, I job hunted and got a position teaching summer school English, I kept job hunting and accepted an opportunity I never thought I'd be a part of, and the Mr. has had some career path planning to think about too.

{the new oasis, keeping myself and the Mr. busy}

And there's been projects a plenty around here.  Today I want to show you my little project of love based off of this masterpiece.  Don't get too excited, it's only the compost bin and it has yet to be painted, but we are planning to build the raised bed garden in the fall or next summer.

So first things first, make sure your husband is gone.  Send him to run an errand, out with his friends or ask his commander to schedule drill ;)  Sometimes a girl just likes to tackle a project by herself and do it her way the unconventional way.

Step 1:  Gather supplies.

{this is not a photoshop action, this is the actual jigsaw borrowed from our roommate, which is a blog post of its own.  suffice it to say if your are a real adult, sans roommate, borrow/buy/find a jigsaw elsewhere}

{after some experience, I'd recommend investing in a good decent hammer, or grab a crow bar from your nearest neighborhood bandit...my hammer broke whilst prying up board number two}

Step 2:  Get ready to rage...on a palette.

{rage is an important supply to have, I was lacking on the first board which is why it is now fire pit kindling}

• Saw along the sides on four boards.
• Then use your handy little jimmy/flat head screw driver and hammer away under the middle nails.  
• When you feel your rage start to wane, attack from the other side.
• Then use your hammer/crow bard to pry the board up.  Watch out for rusty nails, nothing says "Honey, look what I did!" like a tetanus shot.

Step 3:  Lay your boards out in a square and calm yourself down.

Step 4:  Gather your next batch o' supplies.

{mending braces to attach your boards to each other}

{chicken wire/rabbit wire depending on who/what you're trying to keep out of your compost}

 {tree limb cutters eh hem, wire cutters}

{a drill that your Mr. has deemed the "wife drill" since it can't do too much damage, an upholstery staple gun, and broken hammer}

Step 5:  Use your noodle.  Put it together, obvees!  Be sure to measure your chicken scratcher wire to fit behind your boards.

Step 6: Grab your hinges and carry your happy little gate out to where it belongs. Attach with someone's help who gets home too early.

 Step 7:  Admire your gate's new control of neighborhood pests.

Step 8:  Decide to paint compost bin aqua, even though it is only a compost bin.  Next weekend.

{Head over to Heather's to see more ways that people are making their lives a bit more lovely}

Happy Birthday Sis!

Happy Birthday to one of the coolest, strongest and most admirable women I know.  You are awesome.

{always there when I need you}

• Thanks for feeding me lemon pepper by the spoon full as a lil one, without you I wouldn't have mastered my array of facial expressions.
• Thanks for teaching me the art of bargain shopping, beginning with me digging through your garbage can for anything cool you may have thrown away.
• Thanks for trying to salvage the worst haircut of my life and telling me it looked cute even though it was very David Cassidyesque and not at all like Josie's from Josie and the Pussycats.

• Thanks for teaching me the running man, invaluable life skill.  Seriously.

But most importantly thank you for being an example of a woman who is righteous, for being the best new wife mentor ever and for being my friend (even when I haven't made it easy).  I love you!

P to the S: So glad you are breaking your sugar fast today because your Bunko Birthday is going to be rockin'!

Outdoor Loving

Oh hey there, I've been gone a loooooong time.  But since I'm at home sick (again) today, I thought I'd take advantage of some downtime and dream of what the Mr. and I will be doing with the backyard this spring...assuming that our spring weather ever gets well, springy.

Source: lovelyundergrad.com via Summer on Pinterest

When I went to Lowe's during my extremely productive Spring Break (more to come on that) I spied concrete paint.  Oh. to. the. no.  (If you're Mr. Cook) Otherwise it was like all of my hatred for the ugly concrete slab had been set free.  I want to paint it in a chevron pattern like that awesome little pic above.  But with these colors:

Source: hgtv.com via Summer on Pinterest

One cannot go too crazy with color after all when the Mr. is allowing you to paint (seriously?!) the concrete.  Ask me again when I'm in the middle of painting if I'm still this excited.

Color scheme, red and aqua everywhere else of course.  It may seem tired or overdone to some but I love it, it's what I'm going for in our kitchen and living room (since they're one big open space) and I see the patio as an extension of that.  But time telling I will change my mind, which is why when I would really like to get this:

Source: worldmarket.com via Summer on Pinterest

I will get this:

Source: worldmarket.com via Summer on Pinterest

And jazz it up with some of these:

I've missed you.  Now time to go get something accomplished before I return to The Fury tomorrow.

My Sister

Is incredibly talented.  She would never toot her own horn this way but I'll do it for her, because that's what sisters are for :)  She's got a Midas touch (what?  you don't study Greek mythology?) i.e. everything she touches turns to gold.

She makes and gives the best gifts.  For a year (or longer) I've been bugging her to make me some dishtowels and a table runner.  I thought my constant pleas were falling on deaf ears until I opened this on Christmas.

(squeal, pinwheels in my kitchen colors!)

(gasp, it's reversible!)

(i know, she's got a thing for picking out rockin' fabrics)

(the boys have been told they cannot use these towels for anything...anything...doesn't everyone have decor towels?)

As if that weren't enough, my parents got me my very own kindle (still "the best gift ever" according to Mr. Cook).  After a weekend get away to the mountains before heading into my student teaching semester, I realized that my kindle was very chilly without a cover.  Maybe it had something to do with the conditions...

But I'll take it as a reason to support the seamstress behind knitty bitties any day.

And while sometimes it's rough to have a sister so talented (eh hem, comparison issues) most of the time it's pretty awesome!  

New Year's Eve

While other reflective and thoughtful posts are circulating around the blog-o-sphere about New Year's resolutions and goals, I thought I'd take a moment to help ya'll lighten up with a recap of our New Year's Eve celebration.

{it looks nice right?  a moment captured in time}

Mr. Cook finally made it home on Dec. 23rd.  Just in time for Christmas.  It was a very emotional two weeks of ups and downs, not knowing if he'd be home in time, attempting to plan a trip to Georgia if he wouldn't make it, finally being reunited and now re-acclimating to each other, to our new shared space, to life.  Needless to say some celebrating was desperately needed.

Enter failed surprise here, i.e. I planned a Welcome Home/Housewarming/New Year's Eve Surprise Party... and Mr. Cook knew about it, the. entire. time.  Awesome.  Even better?  He played along.  Did I mention what a terrible liar I am?  Sneaking off for text messages, phone calls, facebooking at all hours.  No worries, botched surprise aside, it was quite possibly our best New Year's Eve celebration yet.

Step 1:  Invest in Just Dance for the Wii.  There is quite possibly no better ice-breaker.  Strangers turned into old friends, old friends laughing at the audacity of friends they thought they knew so well, party in a box.

Step 2: Impromptu photo booth.  What began as a welcome home sign, turned into the photo op of the evening.

Step 3: Mediocre finger food and good drinks.

Step 4: A camera to ensure that embarrassing moments will forever be preserved.  

*please note* the invites did not ask guests to wear plaid, sheer coincidence

How did you ring in 2011?